Absolution
by hellgods'r'us
Summary: Three survived.  Now, with all hope lost, they must return to try and win the war they've fought their whole lives.  Time Travel OOtP fic.  Dark.


WARNING: This fic is extremely violent. There will be blood. A lot of blood. And giblets. And brain fluid, bone fragments, and lungs. There will also be swearing. A lot of it. It's not as dark as some other stuff that I've read, but it's pretty bad. It's also AU from after HBP and there are mentions of femslash though it's mainly het. If this all bothers you, feel free to leave. Also, if you think that it contains the pairing of the two people I've put down as main characters - it DOESN'T. They're main characters. They are not in any way involved. Calling them friends would even be a stretch. It's only the fact that I can't put down three main characters that's preventing me from doing so. If this was the reason you looked at this fic, then I'm sorry to disappoint you. You have been warned.

Disclaimer: Own not, Harry Potter I do. JK Rowling, she does. Hmm, yes. Yoda, what are you doing on my computer again! Before he returns, I don't own him, or the modified bible psalm, or the humorous Joss Whedon reference. Cookie to the man who spots it. Also really don't own Muse. Wish I did.

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><p>Apocalypse, Please<p>

He was fucked.

No, that was British understatement. He was fucked like a virgin who, while drunk on her way home, ran into a biker gang who happened to have transplanted spiny cat cocks and were into BDSM.

It had started off fairly well. They'd barely known he'd been there, and he'd been able to pick off the stragglers quietly and out of sight. There weren't that many left either, just ten, and none of them that high ranking. He'd honestly thought for a moment that it would all go well.

Then in the space of a minute, she and four others had arrived, he'd triggered a very sensitive trip wire that had sent alarms blaring, and lost his shotgun.

He wouldn't lie. He was damn good at killing. He'd racked up one hell of a body count in the last few years.

What he wasn't as good in was in a stand up firefight. And with fourteen – now nine – other fuckers standing around he'd been hard pressed.

Wand gripped tightly in hand, he leaned out from behind the chunk of masonry he was leaning against and risked a quick blasting curse at the figure edging towards him.

Fortunately, he didn't get his shield up fast enough, and was blown into kitty kibble. Six and her left.

Standing up from behind the masonry he whipped a piercing curse and a pair of bone saws at a black robed throat. The piercing curse punctured the shield for long enough that the bone saws slid through and ripped his head from his shoulders. The man's last act was to fling a banisher at a rock that smacked against his head sending him sprawling and dazed for a second.

A crack behind him and a flash of light, and with a dive he was leaping aside, ignoring the stars swimming through his vision, his wand raised. 'Scuta!' tore from his throat as a golden burst of fire rushed towards him. It was absorbed, and he collapsed his shield, firing a silent piercing curse again through his opponents eye. They collapsed without a sound.

Another noise, and he was forced to shield himself again with a hurried mutter of 'Protego' but then before he could realise his mistake of not utilising a more complex shield, the disarming curse fired from behind hit him.

From his hand hurtled his black wand, arcing through the air. In that time two cutting curses had sliced his arm, not with enough force to permanently injure, but certainly with enough to hurt immensely.

For a moment there was stillness. They were too low ranking to risk the honour of such a death as his would be. In the distance, footsteps and a piercing cackle could be heard.

Then, slowly, he raised his hands. 'I guess you got me,' he said.

The two dark robed figures glanced at each other, then back at him. Raised their wands. He smiled.

Then, with a silent word inside head, he activated the tattoos that curled around his biceps. Shadows ripped through his shirtsleeves, sharpening into bladed tentacles that cut through their feeble shields and into their throats, their groins, their chest cavities.

They collapsed, in pieces. He collapsed, exhausted. His jacket and shirt were ruined now, and he discarded them without much regret – he'd not worn his best. His hands closed on his wand, sliding it into the undamaged fast deploy holster on his right arm. Clad in a black vest and the light from the stars, he staggered through the rubble. Then, his shape flashed in outlined blue hexagons that traced from his shoulders for a fraction of a moment, and he was gone, merely a ripple in the air.

The footsteps grew closer. Muttering and hisses.

Finally a pale face framed by once-dark hair peered into the room. Lined with age and concern, a scar ran from cheek to forehead, twisting apart nose and eye and lending a permanent sneer to her furious visage. The owner of the face hissed in frustration. Other dark shapes descended like bats, and at her gesture spread out across the room, wands ready.

After a moment she sighed, began to turn away.

It was at that point that one of the dark-robed men's legs collapsed. Mainly because they'd been cut off at the knee. A shimmering shape behind him pointed at another who flew backwards like he'd been struck by a gorilla, slamming into a wall with a crunch. The flames that washed towards him directly afterwards soon ended his life. The last one and the dark haired woman started to flick curses towards the shimmering shape, but he had already dived under them, the invisibility fading from him as his hand came up, a huge pistol clutched in his pale fingers, and fired.

The Smith and Wesson Magnum was, without doubt, the most powerful handgun ever. Still, a wizard with a good enough solid state shield or, worse, a kinetic redirector could deflect such a blow with a minimum of relative damage.

That is, if they were expecting it, had time to cast, and more importantly weren't trying to counter the more expected attack from a spell.

As it was, the skull mask of the last dark-robed figure was blasted apart, along with their skull, bursting like a pustule under pressure.

Unfortunately, it was then that the woman's flaming bludgeoning curse connected.

He felt his ribs crack like Styrofoam even before he was sent flying through the air. His vest was alight for a brief horrifying instant. The impact with the floor sent his wand slipping from his fingers, his gun too. He tried to move, but ropes were wrapping around him, tightening his chest. His ribs shifted and he drew in a harsh breath that only made the pain worse.

With maddened eyes, the woman looked down. 'Got you, scum.' Her words started to form the next syllables. 'Ava-'. He closed his eyes.

Then a pair of paler, even slimmer hands slipped round her head and twisted.

The woman's neck snapped like a gunshot. She collapsed suddenly and without warning.

Behind her stood a girl. She was dressed in a long sweeping white coat, the three lines of silver buttons down the front glinting dully, black boots just visible underneath. Shining white-blonde hair ran down past her shoulders in a flow. Her eyes were bitterly cold, like the winter in the Antarctica, and if the eyes were indeed the windows to the soul, hers was as empty as a pharaoh's tomb.

She was also extending one long pale hand.

'Pay up.'

The man bound and bleeding on the rocky floor raised his eyebrow. 'You've got to be fucking with me.' His voice echoed with incredulity. 'Untie me, heal me, and let's get on with it.'

The girl shook her head. 'Pay up. I told you that they would place one senior Death Eater here, and you bet me fifteen sickles I was wrong.'

'I'd pay you if you fucking untied me!'

The tap of a stick on stone was the first warning that they weren't alone. The man desperately flipped himself with a grunt of pain and grabbed his wand in his mouth before rolling over to face the threat. The girl was more direct, pulling a throwing knife from her belt with one hand and letting a thin white wand slide into her hand from her sleeve.

The man let the wand drop from his mouth. 'When did you become so good at sneaking around?'

'Since I had too.' The woman's voice was tired. She stepped further into the light.

Her face was worn, tired, her hair brown, with premature streaks of gray. It was a vast tangle, like a bird's nest, and beneath it lurked a face that might once have been pretty, but now was simply worn. A glinting metal eye-patch appeared to rest, without support, over her right eye, and she walked with a limp, her left leg stiff, a cane clutched in her hand.

'We've been planning this for five years. Let's not fuck up now.' She turned away, and advanced into the darkness.

With a slash of her wand Luna Lovegood broke Draco Malfoy's bonds and they followed Hermione Granger into the building, into the past.

* * *

><p>The idea had come to her not long after the last desperate Muggle government had fallen. As she had ushered desperate refugees to the portkey to headquarters, shielding as many as she could, desperately trying to heal the damage of permanently transfigured features (she could still hear the screams of the mother who realised her baby was dead as the molten gold its brain had been replaced with leaked from its ears), she had wondered why she still fought. Even if, by some miracle or act of Lady Luck they killed Voldemort, then how could they ever recover? How could the <em>world<em> ever recover? Over three billion dead, the body count rising daily. Over half of Africa overrun by demons. America, a series of scorched plateaus of haunted ash, where the spirits of the dead wailed constantly, held in place by curses.

And Britain, tiny Britain, marred by vast pyramids and strewn rubble, by patches of untamed wild magic that ripped apart all who came near, scattered with portals and dragons and areas where the geometry of the universe had failed a circle could be squared.

What would they really be able to do once they defeated him? Wouldn't it be better to just give up? Give in to the sweet oblivion of easeful death?

And in that instant of total despair a plan leapt, fully formed, solid as the wood of her wand, into her head. They'd abandoned the remains of their old friends, packed their bags, and left, for a sole lonely hope that they clung onto as they traversed continents and seas and the ruins of nations to find their goal.

It was experimental, dangerous magic. It was research and death. It was the old places of the world where terrors even greater than those that walked above stalked.

It was what she was good at.

* * *

><p>They'd managed to clear enough rubble from the room that they could start laying the necessary preparations. There was no sign of an alarm yet, which was good. Because they were on a schedule.<p>

He left the setup to Granger and the obsessive weapon cleaning to Luna, and got himself ready. Another shirt on, his good shirt, filled with runes that meant that if he needed to activate anymore of his tattoos he'd remain clothed. Waistcoat, made of dragon skin with a Syrian manticore silk lining. Would turn back a bullet, and most spells, almost all of them with the upgrades he'd put in it. Shoulder holsters, and his Smith and Wessons. He wasn't as fanatically attached to his guns as Luna was to her bloody AK (he could see her cleaning it now, silver and moonstone, checking the runes, the chamber, its magical conductivity), but they'd pulled him out of a tight spot more often than not, and he loved the image of himself with the pair of them. Of course, he could barely fire one without having to activate his strength enhancing charms to compensate, and two required him to have his best, otherwise he'd shatter his wrists. Dinner jacket, over the top. Flameproof, tamper-proof, near infinite pockets and a number of neat places to hide his backup wands. With regret, he slid his beautiful ebony darling of a wand out of the fast deploy holster and into one of the backup places, instead choosing a yew and dragon heartstring as his primary wand. He couldn't afford to lose his main wand now though. Not with where they were going.

Then, he started the long, long, long task of warding the area. He had time, though. Granger was still scattering the bicorn horn, and from what he'd seen of her description of the ritual, there was almost an hour to go before he'd need to be doing something. So he warded.

He had discovered, when he was still a Death Eater, and much to his own surprise, that he was very good at tricky rune wards. Precise, had been his own words at the time as he helped to patch up his manor. Of course, his new found talent had meant that he'd had to _learn_ some stuff. He'd never paid any attention in class – he'd had no need to. But back then, he was bored, and scared, and it made him do crazy things. Like read the entire Malfoy warding library.

It was an old Malfoy special, from the thirteenth century, that he was setting up now, around the third entranceway. The runes were smooth, and well hidden, with nuances. Step straight through them, and a brief linking spell with one's magical core was triggered, sending a further signal by courier runes to a sapping rune, normally used for draining other wards. In this case however, it would drain the target's magic out of them as fast as it possibly could.

The results of direct core drainage that fast were...explosive. The best part was that a series of other runes, essential to the courier and linking section, also were part of a second ward scheme that allowed magic to be reflected back at the caster. When the first ward was positioned right, the second would automatically be created as well, preventing a standard blow-the-runes-and-let-God-sort-out-the-discharge tactic. When combined with the runes that triggered Granger's brilliant prism spell, which took the spell that hit it, and split it into three or more copies of itself (all slightly weaker of course, but when against numbers that didn't matter), the redirecting of the spell could take out a whole wave of Death Eaters.

And the best part was, due to the whole set up the wards charged themselves each time they triggered. No need for one of his elaborate rune batteries, or a direct, draining link to himself.

Of course, that wasn't all the traps he was setting up. There were other wards, from harmless versions of the tripping jinx to ones that replicated deadly acid, combined, separate, staggered and able to tell friend from foe. Mixed in amongst the wards, out into the corridors and the front of the building, he was setting up other things: bear traps enchanted to be spell-resistant and very angry, claymores that followed the target around and had lightning wards painted onto them as well that triggered when the explosive did, and a series of vials containing seeds of Japanese Devil's Snare and some insta-grow spells that would trigger when the glass was shattered. He even had an old depth charge, packed with siphoned magics to enhance the explosion, rigged with shield charms to shape it into a funnel of fiery death.

He kept working, desperately, to stave off the boredom. Of waiting. Of fear.

He hadn't joined the resistance because he agreed with them. Well, not at first. He'd joined because he was bored. Bored of being told what to do by his father, his fiancée, his lord and fucking master. Bored of being in charge of the world but unable to go outside and enjoy the control he had for fear that his face would be blown off. Bored of hearing speeches about the integrity of purebloods, and how noble and true they were when he knew half the Death Eaters were diddling mudbloods on every capture mission they went on. Bored of the lies.

He'd always wanted to avoid boredom.

He sighed to the tall rooms. 'And so here I am.'

* * *

><p>It was nearly thirty minutes to midnight. The ruins gleamed under the full moon. The air was still.<p>

The conditions were right. Perfect. Lips pursed, she contemplated the pentagram she'd sketched out painstakingly. Within it, curves and sweeps of symbols and objects ran through the area, aligned just so. One millimetre wrong, and the world itself could be ripped apart. One object slightly impure, and they could find their souls ripped apart.

And they hadn't even got to the necessary stuff yet. The stuff they had spent the past five years collecting.

A glimmering dark jewel.

A feather from an angel's wing, dipped in a living star.

An eyeball, blackened and shrivelled with rot.

A jar of the brain fluid of the oldest dragon.

Not in the circle yet. Because now, at thirty minutes to midnight they were on a schedule. Standing from a crouch with difficulty, feeling the strain in her right leg, and still after all these years feeling _nothing_ in the left, she raised her wand to the sky.

Her eyepatch carefully laid a giant target over her vision in response to her thoughts over the area of the sky she was to cast the spell at.

She took a breath. Here it was. The culmination of nearly seven long and arduous years.

'Libertas.' A murmur that fell from her lips almost silently.

The effects, however, were far greater.

Shooting from the sky, a vast lightning bolt connected itself to her wand, linking her and the skies above for a brief moment. With great suddenness it began to rain.

But more importantly, a figure was forming in the lightning. A great shape, staring out over the country, smile on his face.

Looking at him, Hermione remembered the Harry Potter she had seen last. Burning alive, screaming, the Cruciatus hitting him again and again as the flames melted away his skin. The relief on his face as a crying Neville had finally managed to hit him with an Avada Kedavra to take him from his pain.

She thought of Ron, hit in the back by a killing curse, the light that had fallen from his eyes, Harry's ensuing cry of rage, and the grim funeral that had followed. She thought of Ginny, tortured half to death and then killed as she was being rescued. She thought of Neville, telling them to flee, laying left and right with the Sword of Gryffindor as the demons in Voldemort's service came closer and closer to surrounding him, to making it past him in the narrow escape tunnel. She thought of Tonks, melted in the core of a Volcano by Voldemort himself. Of Lupin, mad with moon rage being ripped in half by Fenrir Greyback. Of Parvati Patil who allowed herself to die so she could take down her twisted twin. Of Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan who stormed the corrupted Ministry wands blazing and wiped out the corrupt government before their deaths.

And she thought of the Hermione Granger she had been. Of the eye popping in her skull as the thumb drove deeper. Of the dragon who had nearly bitten her in half. Of the Cruciati she had suffered that had paralysed her left leg.

She thought about vengeance.

Then, as she heard the faint pops of apparition in the distance, she bent over the pentagram again. It was time to begin.

* * *

><p><em>Blessed be the Lord my strength. <em>

She shot the first three before they have even truly finished getting their bearings from arrival. The fourth had started to cast a shield spell but the bullet had punched straight through his torso before he could. The fifth had tried something long and complex which was cut off by the spray of blood that had been his throat as her shot struck him.

_Who teaches my hands for war, my fingers to fight. _

The sixth managed to finish his spell, a flimsy attack fired at an invisible enemy in the wrong direction. She allowed herself a single twitch of her lips and the smashing apart of his torso as the explosive bullet she'd fired mashed into him. The others were starting to work out what was happening, and were retreating. The trigger was pulled, three times fast, and another four collapsed, one having stood just behind the other, the bullet ripping through one and into the next. She could hear his screams.

_My goodness and my fortress._

More were appearing now, the traces of portkeys and of apparition obvious. Seeing the situation they were trying to retreat, but from her position it was a perfect kill zone. She flipped the gun to fully automatic without a thought and opened up.

_My high tower, my deliverer. _

The cracks from her gun rolled like lightning into the night, muzzle flash illuminating her calm features. The Death Eaters were collapsing like a wave against the beach and for a moment she felt a brief surge of rage at their incompetence. She'd hoped for a fight, and here she was killing them like they were nothing, like they hadn't taken everything from her. Like she wasn't a madman.

For an instant the forced battle-calm collapsed and the insanity in her eyes shone through. She crushed it mercilessly.

_My shield, and he in whom I trust – who subdues people beneath me. _

More and more of them were falling as they appeared now, and they were doing their best to retreat, to set up a line of attack. Some managed to fire off spells – stunners, an Avada Kedavra, a Cruciatus of all things. They impact against the great orange ward shield that now surrounded the ruined building.

_Lord, what is man, that thou takes knowledge of him!_

She'd broken these ones for now. Turning a hundred and eighty degrees she could see another wave, coming in virtually unchecked – oh, they were being ripped apart by the few traps that Malfoy had put outside, but in comparison to the rabble on her side they were far too well grouped. The shield in front of them was growing _thin_.

She thought a single word as she fired. _Engorgio. _

The magic buzzed down the rifle, swirled into the bullet. Even before it had gone half a metre it had swelled impressively. When it landed it was a supersonic mass of explosive metal three times the size of a standard artillery shell.

The centre of the group of dark robed figures was blown apart in an instant. Those nearby were simply shredded with shrapnel, left bleeding and shrieking in the dust. Those a little further away were crushed by the pressure wave.

_Their days are as a shadow; they pass away. _

She allowed herself a smile. That was better.

* * *

><p>The Death Eaters retreated into the darkness, licking their wounds. The defenders waited.<p>

Ten minutes of calm later, Draco swore viciously in a made up language.

Inferi. He fucking hated Inferi.

They were any warders nightmare; not alive enough to properly trigger wards that would otherwise rip them to shreds, yet not dead enough for the wards not to waste useful magic checking them out. Even if the wards triggered, a large number of Inferi could, by all crossing a ward at once, overpower the magics, destroying careful rune schemes.

And, you know, he just fucking hated Inferi. He didn't even have his shotgun.

Across the blasted plain, the wave of shambling figures advanced. Gaps were appearing in their ranks very quickly – he'd never thank Luna, but he'd damn well thank God that she was so fucking good at what she did – but many of them were already beating on the orange dome of energy, arms ablaze with spellfire but hammering until they were turned to ash.

From his vantage point on the second floor he sent whirling bonecutters, severing charms, blasting curses. He even tried petrification. But slowly the shield was being worn down. He could feel it draining the whole runic system as it desperately tried to draw more power into itself. A few more minutes of the undead horde and the rest of his initial defence network would be useless, linked together as it was.

He should have realised that the Dark Lord would send Inferi first – he wasn't stupid, and he certainly was immensely powerful, powerful enough that he could tell what sort of scheme the shield was simply by looking at it, and arrogant enough to not attack at first.

His mistake might ruin the whole damn thing.

Or not. As many as the Inferi were, they were noticeably thinned, and their numbers were decreasing every second as the press of rotting bodies behind forced their fellows into the death that the shield offered them, and into the increasingly large explosions from Loony's rifle.

Suddenly there was a burst of static in his brain, and for an instant he thought that somehow he had missed an invisible attacker and was dying, but then the static coalesced into words within his head. _Lower the shield – we mustn't let them turn this into a siege. They must attack. _

Draco snarled. Bloody fucking Granger's bloody fucking plan. With a flick of his wand he accessed the controller rune he had carved next to him, and through that cut off all supplies of magic to the runes that maintained the shield.

The orange dome over the ruins wavered for a second, then disappeared, like a bubble upon reaching the floor.

And pouring in came the Inferi. Hundreds, thousands maybe. Far too many.

Damn Granger and her cunting plans, he was going to fuck up the Inferi's shit.

With minimal difficulty he tapped back into the rune network and raised the shield again, slicing many of the Inferi in two.

Now for the tough part.

Reaching into the network he activated a second series of backup runes that formed a solid silver bubble within the orange shield. The vanguard of the Inferi were trapped, between the two, unable to advance, and unable to retreat.

With a grimace, Draco channelled his own magic into the runes, and shifted control of the inner shield to a second set of runes using himself as the bridge.

The silver shield expanded, pushing the Inferi before it like a great plough, pushing them into the orange burning flame of the outer shield, burning them to nothingness in an instant.

Smoking and exhausted, Draco collapsed to the floor. His backup wand was ashes half glued to his palm, his hair was a mess, and his magical core was in tatters.

Granger was also shrieking in his head, which didn't help much. _Let them in! Let them in! He must be here by midnight or we FAIL! Let them in! _

Hand shaking, he reached into his jacket and withdrew a smooth black stone, then kissed the run on the centre of it. He could feel the magic he'd stored in the stone rushing into him, refilling his core, pulling himself back together. Rejuvenated he stood, withdrew a second backup wand. He wasn't going to risk using his true wand until he was sure he wouldn't lose it.

Tapping into the ward network again, he lowered the orange dome.

* * *

><p>Organisation had been key.<p>

She'd needed to plan every single step, everything, the preparation, what they'd do once they set the plan in motion. She'd spent hours within their memories, years researching and designing the spell.

And now she was here. It was strangely unexciting. Just like every other time they'd lured the Death Eaters to them so they could kill a large number at once. Luna, at a vantage point temporarily, striking them down as they appeared to lure more in, Draco setting up traps with routes through the traps, mazes to thin their numbers.

And her, working on the big spell.

She raised the cerebral fluid, and, murmuring in Sumerian, Assyrian and a bastardised form of Coptic, poured it over her. It may have looked like water, but she could feel the difference as it soaked through her hair – it was heavier, sticky, more viscous.

Like them. They may have looked normal from the outside, but within, within they were all so very scarred. So much heavier, stickier and harder to separate than they appeared.

It was eleven forty-five. They were making good time so far.

With a suddenness she realised she should not have told Draco to lower the shield – the Inferi would tax him too much as soon as they got close.

Mistakes were not an option. She had to correct.

Splitting one's mind was regarded as dark magic before the war. Now, it was simply a necessity. Dividing her consciousness, Hermione reached out with a simple mental communication spell and brushed against the calm white walls of Luna's brain.

Suddenly she found her mental probe attacked, bludgeoned, surrounded. The white walls that she had seen Luna's shields as were suddenly obsidian spikes with corpses ranged across them, closing around her.

_Luna! Stop! _

For one moment Hermione wondered whether she was about to lose a fragment of her mind again.

Then the reddened sky of Luna's mental landscape retreated, and the sharp walls dissolved into smooth whiteness.

_Hello Hermione. What is it? _

Hermione gently rubbed the cerebral fluid into her eyelid.

_Kill the Inferi. _

Dark amusement rumbled from Luna's mind. _I do. I am. _

_Kill them all. Now. _

She retreated, rejoined her mind. Drew her staff across the pentagram in a series of hexagonal twirls.

* * *

><p>Long ago, Luna had loved to dance. She had twirled with her mother and father as a tiny chubby child, spun through flowered meadows in search of plimpies as a girl, and danced with other people (which had been bizarre for her) as a teenager. Luna had best liked the fast dances, the dances with a spin and a swirl, the dances that were almost a dance.<p>

Combat was no different. Except, much to her annoyance, a long time ago she had discovered that she couldn't be fast enough. Even with her vast training, her skill, her power, she couldn't cross a hundred metres in an instant. Well, she could Apparate, but it was inefficient, and what was more it was noisy and disorienting.

She had come to Hermione with the problem. Hermione had found a solution.

Thus, when Luna disappeared from the top of the tower and reappeared in the middle of the Inferi there was no moment when she wasn't in the world. There was no crack of noise. No burst of light. It was simply that one moment she was on top of the tower, the next, retaining the momentum of the spin into which she had put herself, she was on the blasted plan of ash, the scent of rot in her nose and her finger tightening on the trigger as she continued to twirl.

The bullets exploded through the desiccated flesh of the Inferi, ripping them apart, punching through several at a time. She was accurate normally, but at this rate of fire, shooting in this way, she simply didn't have time to be. Not every shot destroyed enough of the Inferius it hit its flesh to break the magic that animated it, but a large enough number did that the effect of her movement was instantly noticeable.

She felt a tap at her elbow as an Inferius attempted to rip her arm off, and annoyance surged through her. How could she have been careless enough to let it come this close? Her foot came up as her spin ended, knocking the offending corpse's head from its shoulders. Holstering her darling AK in a pocket of otherspace, she withdrew a pair of pistols and opened fire in the same smooth motion, knocking aside Inferi as they ceased to run for the ruins and instead came for her.

There was no real need for calm, no need for concentration against this foe, for if they got too close she could easily pop away to give her time, and so she unleashed the rage she normally kept restrained at the back of her mind. Her anger was a vast all consuming fire, such as when the universe was born, and it was a vast icy emptiness , such as how the universe would end. How dare fate have broken her like it had. How dare fate build her up again into a madwoman. How dare fate dangle others redemption in front of her like a treat for a dog.

Luna knew the truth. She knew that no matter who she was, or where she was, nothing would quench the roaring fire inside her that demanded the blood of someone, anyone.

And she didn't give a fuck. Let them feel her anger. Let them feel her rage. Let them burn, as she burned.

The pistols were discarded in an instant and with a motion the AK was in her arms again, silver and moonstone, shining in the light of the stars. Smiling, she poured her magic into it.

The fire that shot from her AK would have registered as a temperature hotter than the core of a star if anyone had tried to check it. Of course, anyone who was observing it would first have noticed the animals that seemed to pour through it, vast macabre winged horses of scarlet flame. The Thestrals of Fiendfyre burned away the Inferi like they were nothing, nothing at all. They were nothing. Not a challenge, not a problem.

The Thestrals ran together, flowing into each other, merging, growing. A vast Thestral hung in the air above her of fire.

Its horse lips moved in conjunction with her own.

'Give me a real fight, Voldemort.'

The Fiendfyre dissolved as Luna forced it into nonexistence. The sky was silent. No reply. The ashes of the Inferi mingled with the black dust of the landscape. Her breath held in her throat. Would he reply?

A distant cry. High, piercing, wild and full of _anger_. Rage akin to hers.

Then, over the hill they came.

Luna smiled, and raised her AK.

* * *

><p>The roars as the demons charged Luna plucked at her heart. They were lesser demons, the lowest footsoldiers in the army of the Demon Lords and the Fallen, but to Voldemort they were his elite, his Praetorian Guard, his shocktroopers, ten foot tall hunched lumps of pure muscle and bone.<p>

Hermione was safe, for now, behind the walls and the enchantments but a shiver ran down her spine. In wizarding culture demons were abominations, horrors, the bogeymen of the bogeymen. She'd read enough to absorb this attitude herself. The part of her that was always and had always been muggle however was fascinated with them – surely they weighed too much to support their own weight, and they looked as if their gate should be ponderous, yet they could run faster than a race car. They had no eyes, yet they could 'see' their prey if it so much as twitched. They had no fur, no skin, and yet somehow regulated their internal temperatures.

It was these inherent contradictions in nature that had first fascinated her. When the Hellhounds had first appeared, she had taken one's dead body, studied it in secret, trying to find out what made demons tick.

Later, during her year-that-was-six-hours in the Vatican that information had been useful. Now it was coming to fruition.

The dark jewel seemed to hum with its own internal magic as she rubbed it over the pentagram - seven clockwise, seven counterclockwise, three times of each, then inscribing a cross the last time. A harsher tongue now, older than humanity, older than language, older than this ball of metal and oxygen, hydrogen and carbon that spun through space. The syllables spat from jaws not designed to make the noises she was forcing them to create.

She raised the jewel to her lips, kissed it, forced it into the concrete at the centre of the pentagram on its point. Pointed her staff and poured magic into it, ripping its contents out without disturbing the jewel itself.

Then, before the dark mist that rose from the jewel could expand to its full size, she forced it, compressing it into the lines of the pentagram. The dragon's brain aided her here, channelling her mind and will through it into a focused beam that squashed the howling roar of the contents of the mist.

In her mind, the mist battled back, sending images – tortured children, screaming wailing women, men splattered with guts and filth. Then it saw more of her and the images became more personal: Harry, burning and screaming in agony, her, eye socket bleeding and convulsing as another Cruciatus hit her, Neville, roaring and surrounded, Ron, eyes blank and dead…the list continued as it desperately tried to find something that would distract her long enough to prevent her binding it.

It failed.

The pentagram was dark now, and looked as if it were constantly shifting. The jewel stood, clear and shining, in the centre.

She struck it barehanded, and it shattered, fragile and empty. The shards caught in her hand, released her blood. With a wave of her wand the blood caught in the air along with the remaining shards, before they could hit the floor. Melted them together, then formed it into a ball. Replaced it within the centre of the pentagram.

It was still hot, still malleable, so quickly, quickly she grabbed the eye and forced it into the ball. It rested there, and she muttered to it in Greek. A quick mental check of her internal clock revealed that it was now nearly nine minutes to midnight. Nearly, oh so nearly there.

The sounds of fighting intensified.

They needed to start falling back.

* * *

><p>Draco swore loudly as he ducked behind another fucking pile of stone to whip out another fucking rune battery to restore his magic.<p>

There were way too many. Fucking Hellhounds.

The first time he'd ever seen one he'd emitted a shriek of fear (though if anyone were to ask him he would, of course, say it was a manly bellow) and promptly fallen on his ass prompting wide laughter from Auntie Bella.

They were possibly eight feet high at the shoulder, a shoulder of raw exposed muscle, thick white bone poking through to guard the more sensitive parts, long muzzles brimming with thick black glass teeth, fire blazing within their eyes. Able to outpace a speeding Firebolt (as he and Neville had discovered out on the Texas line), able to leap tall buildings in single bounds (as he had discovered while scouting out New York), and nearly completely bulletproof (unless your bullets were blessed, which he'd discovered within seconds of his first mission with Luna), the only reliable way to kill them in his opinion was to nuke them from orbit.

Because that was the only way to be sure.

As it was, thanks to Luna, the stupid cunt, well over fifty had attacked. He didn't know how many she'd killed, but he knew fifteen had made it into the building, of whom five had been killed (hopefully) by his wards, another two wounded by same, and four had been killed by him.

He resisted the urge to shriek as an unearthly bellow, mingling both high and low tones, split the room. Vast claws skittered on the floor.

Leaping to his feet he pointed his wand at the vast shape charging towards him.

'Ciex, motherfucker!'

A vast scythe of violet energy slammed into it, knocking it back, sending one of its limbs collapsing to the ground, but not slowing it, not at all. Desperate, he hit it with a deliberately botched _Reducio_ hoping that the failed shrinking of its molecules would cause an explosion in response.

It did. An explosion of demonstuff and fire that the Hellhound ignored, and that forced him to duck away, reaching into his jacket for his magnums, withdrawing them, firing again and again, strength spells in his wrists compensating for the force of the recoil. The Hellhound drove through the impacts, the fire in its eyes growing brighter and brighter as it approached.

Then it reeled, collapsed to one side, and hit the floor, dead.

Draco breathed a sigh of relief. His fingers reached for the speedloader runes he'd engraved on the sides of his pistols.

The second Hellhound barrelled into him from behind like a lorry. For the second time that night he went flying, end over end through the air.

He had enough time to think _For fuck's __sake _and _The fuck did it get in here without me noticing?_ before he hit the floor, rolling over and over.

Looking up, Draco gazed upon his death.

Then a flash of white appeared above the charging Hellhound and rotating in midair fired _something_ dark and magical down into the Hellhound that turned it into a steaming pile of goo.

Luna landed. 'Watch your back, Malfoy.'

He allowed himself an eyeroll as he dragged himself to his feet. 'Shut up.'

Her gaze was a solid steel wall. Cold. Hatred. Once again, Draco cursed his dickwad of a father, and then for good measure added in Neville and Snape for dying. Cocks. This battle would be so much better with them there.

Then before he could reminisce more, another Hellhound hurtled round a corner. Accompanying it were three figures in dark robes, and a further six silvery grey doglike shapes that Draco recognised as werewolves.

The final assault had begun. Thank god.

His wand raised, he cast the first spell he could think of. _Vincula bastairia!_

Thick spiked iron chains sprung from the tip of his wand and began to wrap themselves around the group. The Death Eaters tried to banish them away, but as the chains weren't actually iron but made of spell energy it didn't do anything other than waste time. Time which the Hellhound used to bust out, leaving one of its legs behind wrapped in the chains. Time which Luna used to cast – something. Whatever it was manifested as a burst of brilliant golden energy that vaporised Draco's Chains of Torture and most of the werewolves, and left behind a smoking and distorted skeleton as the only sign that the Hellhound had been there.

He attempted to give the steely glare to Luna. It failed.

Whereupon the building exploded.

* * *

><p>He always was overdramatic. Wanting to emerge from the shadows. Or, in this case, through the cloud of debris caused by him collapsing half a building.<p>

So, just to fuck with him, Luna cast _dehemsel hariha _seconds after feeling the floor give way beneath her, before attempting to halt her fall.

The result was that most of the dust in the air was vaporised, and most of the Death Eaters were blinded, as they hadn't had the foresight to cast eye protection spells such as those used by astronomers. Fools.

Also, Lord Voldemort was left standing in the air looking rather foolish, which was always a plus.

Malfoy had somehow managed to hurl himself backwards into another room, and was already speeding up to the ritual room, to check on his wards. It was almost amusing how self centred they all were.

But that was a tangent. She didn't have time for tangents.

Lord Voldemort smiled at her. Opened his mouth to say something.

And so she struck, forced her mind out and onto his, distracting him for approximately a tenth of a second, all the time she needed to conjure a bladed silver surfboard and ride it down into the crowd of Death Eaters at a high percentage of the speed of sound. All the time she needed to tap deep into her magical core and draw on the blue giant of power she normally kept sealed away behind hundreds of locks. To remove temptation. All the time she needed to cast a set of time dilation spells that made everyone else move like a set of ants stuck in amber. They wouldn't last long. But they gave her time.

Time to draw two wands. Dragon heartstring and erumpet horn. Unstable, volatile spells. Perfect for crowd control.

Three misfired slicing curse that split like shotgun pellets cleared her surrounding area. Five throwing knives took out senior Death Eaters she recognised as competent fighters. Two _reducto_s, enhanced by the wands, took out a group of werewolves.

They were speeding back up again. Time for a switch.

The wands disappeared back to their hiding places. Another two, phoenix bone and firecrab intestine sprung to her hands. Flame spells. A pair of basic _incendio_s that she enhanced by conjuring gasoline as well. Then a set of more complex _mrtyu aga_ spells that spat killing flames that sowed confusion across the group. _Engorgio_ed throwing knives then set on fire and sent whirling away? Not a problem.

Now, time was almost back to normal. She needed a shield wand. So she drew one. They were pressing close now, and with a gesture of her hand she threw some of them back, at the same time raising solid state energy shields and phasic reflectors, as well as several chunks of rotating rubble for those troublesome unforgiveables.

Her other hand…

Her other hand filled itself with her sword. Bone, demon-bone. Bleached white. It sliced, tasted blood. Blood that would never touch it, never coat it. Never pollute it.

Stab right, cast left. Voldemort had worked out what had happened and his expression was pretty fucking funny.

Then he cast something at her. It smashed aside six of her shields and almost pierced the seventh. He was shouting something at the Death Eaters, and they were backing away. It didn't matter. She was already rising into the air, stepping onto the air. Her and him, mirrored opposite each other in the air. Her sword was already being sheathed. Her shield wand disappeared up her sleeve as well.

From behind her ear she drew HER wand. A long piece from the horn of a black unicorn. Lacquered with the blood of a Hellhound. Inside, seven thestral hairs wrapped around a fragment of a dementor's cloak. And embedded in the lacquer, so fine you couldn't see unless you were looking for them, one white hair, and one black.

Gently she stroked it. Opposite her Lord Voldemort's own wand was being stroked by the silver fingers of his artificial right arm.

No words were needed. This was the seventh time they had met in battle. It would be the last. One way or another.

_Cast forth lightning, and scatter my foes. Shoot out thine arrows. Destroy them_.

Smiling she joined battle.

* * *

><p>She knew things were bad when the wall collapsed and Draco hurled himself up the stairs screaming something about the building and structural collapse. She couldn't afford distractions, so once again she split her mind – one to continue the spell, one to deal with intruders, and one to get Draco to shut the fuck up.<p>

She decided against that when a wall of spellfire surged towards them and was barely deflected by the wards.

Twirling her staff she fired flash-freezing charms out the hole in the wall, then when there was no abatement in spellfire, tried _asthir, _a slightly higher duty ice spell. In the meantime she traced the feather over the pentagram, using another spell to allow her to speak in binary at the necessary speed without any mistakes. Then back to Latin, a smattering of Hebrew, some Greek for good luck. She continued to fire spells blindly at the Death Eaters, erecting shields for when the wards failed. Draco was returning fire as well, his anger burning battle-hot. His mind was leaking such that she could see the images deep within him, the grief almost new and red-hot.

Her grief was old, numbed, and she fought with clinical, ice-like precision. This was their only hope – her only hope. She fought with the determination that that provided.

And Luna, the last of their trio – a frozen wasteland, all emotion gone, anything to grieve for gone, simply fighting on because that was all she could do and so she might as well do it well. Or so Hermione supposed. It was difficult to tell.

One minute to midnight.

She shouted. She didn't have time for mental contact, and she knew that Luna would hear anyway, over the sounds of uncontrolled magical blasts she was now spiralling at Voldemort.

'LUNA! NOW!'

She could see Luna's smile through the smoke, through the glow of battle.

Her voice rang clear and true over the darkened sky, under the moonlight, over the chorus of Death Eaters, over Draco's hoarse spells, over Hermione's own desperation.

'_Accio blood_.'

Most of the Death Eaters had some sort of shield. The spell was cast with such force however that it ripped through the weaker shields and pulled what was required up to Luna. All the blood that had been spilled rose, though it may have been ash, or within someone, or frozen. It rose to her outstretched wand.

Voldemort's shields held.

Thirty seconds to midnight.

A wall of spells poured from her staff and Draco's wand, trying to wear down his shield. Luna cast the summoning charm again. More blood rose towards her, a wave rising up. The _accio_ began to eat through their own shields.

Twenty seconds.

Voldemort's shields began to crumple. He stood, frozen by the effort of holding off a mental attack from three copies of Hermione's consciousness and Luna.

A drop flew from the tip of one finger.

Fifteen seconds.

Voldemort gathered himself together and threw off the mental attack. Fired one last desperate attack at Luna.

She dodged, banished the blood to Hermione. Disappeared and reappeared next to her.

Ten seconds.

Hermione desperately began lowering the shields. Draco began lowering the wards. Those Death Eaters who remained watched in amazement as the ball of blood streaked towards the building. Voldemort began slowing it.

Enough of it made it in.

It splashed the walls. It splashed them. It splashed the pentagram.

Five seconds.

Hermione stood as quickly as she could and slammed her staff into the centre of the pentagram. It was virtually invisible beneath the blood.

Voldemort screamed two words. Green jetted towards them.

'Da nobis petentibus!' she gabbled.

There was a flash of light.

Midnight. December 21, 2012. The day when the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar ends one of its cycles.

Something appeared in that flash. Something observed them for one precise moment.

Then, they were no more. There was only screaming, pain, ripping, squeezing them, and they were as one mind, as one mind they asked _How much of this can we take? _In that instant they became aware of something with them, something horrifying, and they would have screamed if they'd had mouths, would have fought if they'd had hands, would have run if they'd had feet.

Then the void was gone.

They stood in a room lit by the noise of cars outside, by streetlights. A room with walls. A room filled with furniture. A room that shouldn't exist.

Hermione collapsed with exhaustion, physically and magically drained.

They were back. She'd done it.

**ABSOLUTION**


End file.
